She played her first song onstage at fabled Calgary venue The Ship & Anchor at age 11. The pre-teenaged Kate Stevens was not only breezing down the path of her own career – she was lifting other rising stars as a Music Mile youth ambassador, all before she was old enough to perform in bars. Barely in her twenties, she won YYC Music awards for solo artist and R&B artist of the year, later winning five more, and continued to champion Alberta artists on the CKUA show Magnetic North.

She might seem like any other young woman playing an ordinary happy hour, until she opens her mouth and reveals songs of the universe, of ubiquitous heartbreak, heartmend, hopefulness and despair, bagging 50 years of living in a precise middle eight. Her voice was not made for jazz and soul – they were made for her voice, a voice sparkling like a jewel fallen from a pawned wedding ring, lying in a pebbled laneway, reflecting back the pageant of life in all its grit and glory.

- Mary-Lynn Wardle